The present invention relates to telecommunications services offered through a telephone network, and more particularly to translating identification information digits associated with a telephone call.
The written description uses a large number of acronyms to refer to various services, messages and system components. Although generally known, use of several of these acronyms is not strictly standardized in the art. For purposes of this discussion, acronyms therefore will be defined as follows:
Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN)
Automatic Intercept System (AIS)
Automatic Number Identification (ANI)
Call Processing Record (CPR)
Central Office (CO)
Common Channel Interoffice Signaling (CCIS)
Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone (COCOT)
Data and Reporting System (DRS)
Industry Carriers Compatibility Forum (ICCF)
Integrated Service Control Point (ISCP)
Line Identification Data Base (LIDB)
Local Exchange Carrier (LEC)
Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS)
Point in Call (PIC)
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)
Service Control Point (SCP)
Service Creation Environment (SCE)
Service Management System (SMS)
Service Switching Point (SSP)
Signaling System 7 (SS7)
Signaling Transfer Point (STP)
Stored Program Control (SPC)
Telephone Company (Telco)
Transaction Capabilities Applications Part (TCAP)
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) utilizes automatic number identification (ANI) information to provide various calling features and services. ANI information conveys the calling party and the called party""s numbers. In one application of ANI, for example, ANI information associated with a target station is entered into an ANI trigger table in an intelligent switch, and the service profile is loaded into a database. When a call originates from the target station, information in the database is applied to the switch to provide the desired characteristics during further call processing.
In addition, this information assists in signaling for call setup and tear down. Within the signaling path of a call, the switch provides two information digits, which are a part of the ANI information, to indicate the type of originating station or call (e.g., payphone, POTS, toll-free call, etc.). These two digits are commonly referred to as information (or xe2x80x9cIIxe2x80x9d) digits. The switch places the II digits before other information digits in the signaling message.
Through industry consensus, the Industry Carriers Compatibility Forum (ICCF) standardizes these ANI information digits. For example, xe2x80x9c00xe2x80x9d has been designated to indicate that the source of the call is from a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) line. A xe2x80x9c24xe2x80x9d signifies that the calling party has initiated a toll-free call. Also, a xe2x80x9c27xe2x80x9d means the call is from a coin-operated station (i.e., payphone). An exhaustive list of II digits may be found in the Local Exchange Routing Guide (Bellcore document no. TR-EOP-000085), dated March 1994.
Although the existing II digits may signify that the call is toll-free or originates from a payphone (i.e., a single line attribute), it does not provide a capability to convey both types of information at once. In other words, a toll-free call originating from a payphone does not have designated II digits that correspond to this situation. As a result, details regarding the call are lacking. This deficiency is made apparent by the call flow of FIG. 1.
In FIG. 1, an originating station (step 101) initiates a call. A local central office (CO) then collects the dialed digits from the originating station, step 102. The CO determines (103) the origin of the call by querying a customer profile for the line attribute associated with the terminal line of the originating station. If it is found that the call is from a COCOT (i.e., payphone) (104), the II digits are set to xe2x80x9c27xe2x80x9d (105) to indicate that the call originated from a payphone. However, if the origin of the call is not from a payphone, the II digits are set accordingly (e.g., xe2x80x9c00xe2x80x9d for POTS station) per step 106. The ANI software module within the switch performs the setting of the II digits based upon the retrieved line attribute information. The CO next examines the collected digits to determine whether the call is a toll-free call (107). If the call is toll-free, then the II digits are set to xe2x80x9c24xe2x80x9d, corresponding to an 800 type call (step 108). As illustrated in step 109, the call is routed to the terminating central office, via an interexchange carrier (IXC) network. Once the terminating CO receives the call establishment request, it completes the call setup by ringing the destination station (step 110).
With the current telephone system, a payphone originated call would cause the serving CO switch to assign II digits of xe2x80x9c27,xe2x80x9d indicating within the ANI information field that a call is coming from a coin-operated terminal. A problem arises when the payphone initiates a toll-free call, which has a code of xe2x80x9c24xe2x80x9d. In this case, the toll-free-service software module within the serving switch overrides the ANI software module to employ II digits associated with the toll-free call, 24. In the case of toll-free calls, the II digits are hard coded, preventing any software attempts to change them. Consequently, the II digits of xe2x80x9c27xe2x80x9d, which indicated that a coin-operated phone initiated the call, is superseded by a xe2x80x9c24xe2x80x9d.
A major drawback of this approach is its impact on accounting and billing of the call. Because information concerning the origin of the call is lost, any accounting information attributed to the coin-operated station can not be tracked. As a practical matter, the proprietor of the customer-owned coin-operated telephone(COCOT) can not accurately recoup his share of the fees from the toll-free service subscriber because the call can no longer be traced to the coin-operated telephone. The information loss can also be caused by the inability of any tandem switches to pass the converted II digits.
In general, because the II digits are determined on an industry-wide basis, they can not be readily modified for internal network use. A local exchange carrier (LEC), for instance, is precluded from altering these II digits for its proprietary use. Currently, modification of these II digits requires significant investment in software development to create costly software patches for each and every switch in the carrier""s network. Furthermore, these software patches adversely impact hardware sizing of the switches (e.g., memory requirements), entailing additional expenses. Switch vendors have been aware of this dilemma.
In the past, vendors have marketed xe2x80x9cflexiblexe2x80x9d ANI software to enable alteration of II digits. These software suffer from the drawback that the II digits are still overwritten by hard coding. As a result, significant flexibility of manipulating the II digits is sacrificed.
Also, with today""s telecommunication services, a network provider, such as an IXC, has no viable mechanism to screen or block calls based on the call type and/or call origin. Blocking of calls may be desirable if the cost of transporting and managing the call is economically impractical. For example, an IXC may not wish to transport toll-free calls that originate from COCOTS simply because it would require maintaining a separate account for COCOT originated toll-free calls. This imposes a tremendous administrative burden on the IXCs. Separate accounting is needed because the. COCOT owner is owed a share of the revenue generated by the calls. Therefore, a network provider may choose not to carry such calls.
There is a need for an effective and flexible way to translate the II digits for proprietary or internal use. In particular, a need exists to assign multiple line attributes on a per terminal line basis to preserve the type of call as well as type of originating station, whereby the new II digits are maintained through out the signaling path of the call. There is also a need to provide a blocking service to network providers (e.g., interexchange carriers), which may elect to terminate a call based on the origin and type of call.
The present invention meets the above noted needs by employing a flexible ANI database, which translates the conventional two II digits to a new set of ANI digits. This new set of ANI digits may be made up of any number of digits (e.g., from two or three digits to as much as 4,000 digits). The new ANI digits permanently supercede the two II digits and are relayed through the telephone network and any intervening nodes and networks for the call establishment. Further, the flexible ANI database is adaptable to an advanced intelligent network (AIN) in addition to the traditional PSTN.
One aspect of the present invention provides a method for providing telecommunication services over a telephone network. The method comprises receiving a request to establish a telephone call from a station via a terminal line. Then, line attribute information associated with the terminal line is retrieved. The method also includes generating a first identification message based on the retrieved line attribute information. The first identification message is translated into a second identification message. Lastly, the method involves establishing the call connection based on the second identification message.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a method for providing telecommunication services over a telephone network. The method comprises receiving a request to establish a telephone call from a station over a terminal line and retrieving line attribute information associated with the terminal line from a customer profile. Next a first automatic number identification information digit is generated based on the line attribute information. The method further includes translating the first set of automatic number identification information digits into a second set of automatic number identification information digits that indicate multiple line attributes related to the terminal line. The second set of automatic number identification information digits is relayed to a terminating end office. Call connection is then established based upon the second set of automatic number identification digits.
Still another aspect of the present invention provides a communication system for providing telecommunication services and associated accounting functions comprising a station that is used for establishing a telephone call over a terminal line. A plurality of separately located central office switching systems are interconnected via trunk circuits for selectively providing switched telephone call communications to the terminal line. A customer profile is coupled to one of the plurality of central office switching systems. The customer profile comprises line attribute information associated with the terminal line. One of the central office switching systems is configured to generate a first line identification number based upon the line attribute information. Furthermore, a line identification database stores a second line identification number and is accessible by any one of the plurality of central office switching systems. One central office switching system translates the first line identification number into the second line identification number via queries to the line identification database. The second line identification number is then relayed to another central office switching system. The second line identification number is used to support the accounting functions related to the telephone call.
Additional advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part may become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.